Jacinda hasn’t just led the country with dignity and compassion, she hasn’t just given us the grace of good conscience and strong words, she has shown real action.

1 week after mass shooting atrocity, Jacinda has banned machine guns – this is what political leadership looks like.

As America struggles with pointless mass shooting after pointless mass shooting, Jacinda changes the gun laws within a week.

Thoughts & prayers are nice. Action and decision are better.

‪Hasn’t every person who claimed Jacinda couldn’t be a mother and lead the country at the same time been shamed by the incredible courage, empathy & fortitude she has shown over the last week – we would be a lesser people right now without her leadership.

As we ban guns, the NZ Police are now routinely wearing them…

…I understand why we need to arm Police, but part of me is horrified at a time when horror seems redefined every day over the past 7 days. Remember when James Shaw being punched had left us breathless?

We didn’t know what breathless was.

The reverberations of atrocity don’t end but thank Allah we have a leader who has the wisdom to lead.

Analysis – There is not one specific mention of the threat posed by white supremacists or right-wing nationalism in 10 years of public documents from the Security Intelligence Service or the GCSB.

…people right now want to blame Mike Hosking, Duncan Garner and Chris Lynch for this violent act and I think that’s deeply problematic. Arguing that micro aggressions lead to genocidal rampages might make us feel better by targeting men who have in the past pissed us off with their language but if we want to stop the next Tarrent, I think it’s lazy and fearfully simplistic.

Having read Tarrent’s manifesto, it is hard core white supremacy indoctrination, one doesn’t get to that level of hatred by listening to ZB.

That’s not to say there isn’t white supremacy in NZ, oh Lord, there is. It permeates everything in this country like low level background radiation, from the broken promise of the Treaty, to taking 180 years to apologise for Parihaka, to Asian New Zealanders facing the highest level of racism week to week, to Māori incarceration rates, to Pacific Island poverty stats to Muslim woman verbally harassed on the street everyday. That racism needs to be tackled head on as part of the necessary healing we collectively require in the wake of this atrocity, but this diseased human being didn’t commit this atrocity because of Mike Hosking.

Tarrent’s hate and radicalisation is unique and the Intelligence Services have an enormous amount to explain to us how they didn’t see this threat coming, despite warnings and despite the Islamic community themselves complaining about the ratcheting up of violence.

Blaming Mike Hosking, Duncan Garner & Chris Lynch is easy and it might make us feel better, but it won’t provide us with real answers or keep us safe, that falls upon the Intelligence agencies who had a combined budget of $230m last year.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/21/everyone-wants-to-blame-mike-hosking-duncan-garner-chris-lynch-why-thats-too-easy/feed/47The SIS & GCSB combined budget for last year was $230m – how come they didn’t see a white supremacist plotting an atrocity?https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/20/the-sis-gcsb-combined-budget-for-last-year-was-230m-how-come-they-didnt-see-a-white-supremacist-plotting-an-atrocity/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/20/the-sis-gcsb-combined-budget-for-last-year-was-230m-how-come-they-didnt-see-a-white-supremacist-plotting-an-atrocity/#commentsTue, 19 Mar 2019 21:35:07 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=112307

Last year the GCSB & SIS had a combined budget of $230m – yet couldn’t spot a white supremacist who crossed the border on multiple occasions & was planning an atrocity for 2 years!

As the horror of the atrocity passes from grief to rage, we need to demand hard questions from the NZ Intelligence Agencies who are supposed to protect us from this kind of extremism.

Oh the State Agencies have had time to spy on Māori, Greenpeace, Earthquake survivors, The Greens, MANA Party and Social Justice Activists, and the last SIS threat assessment went on and on about the supposed threat of Radicalised Islamists yet only mentioned the rise of white supremacy in passing as a global trend, not a specific threat to us.

The intelligence agencies are all right wing, they saw the threat to NZ from environmentalists hurting oil company profits, white supremacists weren’t even part of their threat assessment.

It is obvious from reading this mutants manifesto that the specific keyword language he is using would be picked up by a basic algorithm if white supremacy had been on a watch list.

What the Christ were the GCSB & SIS spending that $240m on last year? How could a white supremacist who crossed the border on multiple occasions to go on a tiki tour of white supremacist hot spots nit get noticed?

These agencies broke the law, illegally spied on and shut down an entire Māori township over the Urewera terrorism fiasco, yet they were blindsided by a white supremacist?

I’m not for one second suggesting we give these agencies MORE power, I’m demanding they use the existing powers they have to actually protects us from real threats, not the pretend ones they think we are threatened by.

When will someone from the SIS resign over this enormous Intelligence failure?

When the Nuremberg trials occurred, it was essential to those prosecuting that the trial not only found the Nazi’s guilty, but proved them wrong for history and progressive humanity’s sake – that Brenton Tarrant intends to defend himself shouldn’t surprise anyone, people with this level of psychopathic murderous intent tend to be narcissists, but we shouldn’t fear him using the trail as a platform, we should relish it as the opportunity to not only find him guilty of a heinous atrocity, but to undeniably crush his justifications and arguments.

Wanting to censor the trial or hide his words is a natural response but we are being tested globally and our justice system is strong and our values deeper than his sophistry of hate. We have nothing to fear standing in the light and dragging him into it. In fact, it’s our obligation to do so.

On the failure of our Intelligence Agencies:

Having read the manifesto, it is abundantly clear that his specific use of keywords would have been picked up by algorithm if NZ intelligence apparatus had been searching for white supremacists instead of seeing Māori, Environmentalists, the MANA Party, the Greens and Greenpeace as the threat.

I don’t want the SIS gaining more power, I just want them using the existing powers towards real threats.

On the Blame Game:

The current game on twitter of ‘you-fed-hate-so-you’re-responsible-for-the-murder-of-50-people’ is neat but it utterly misses where the actual responsibility lies:

Beyond those two, Whaleoil has some real soul searching over their hate speech of Muslims and the National Party for endorsing the UN conspiracy but the exact worst way to combat white supremacy is a vast censoring of every right wing opinion you disagree with.

That’s not to say there isn’t white supremacy in NZ, oh Lord, there is. It permeates everything in this country like low level background radiation, from the broken promise of the Treaty, to taking 180 years to apologise for Parihaka, to Asian New Zealanders facing the highest level of racism week to week, to Māori incarceration rates, to Pacific Island poverty stats to Muslim woman verbally harassed on the street everyday. That racism needs to be tackled head on as part of the necessary healing we collectively require in the wake of this atrocity, but this diseased human being didn’t commit this atrocity because of Mike Hosking.

White supremacy breeds into violence when it’s forced underground. I did my first TV interview with NeoNazis in NZ in the late 1990s on The Drum, these are damaged and warped individuals who need their ideology debunked by debate not empowered via deplatforming.

This diseased mutation of an individual picked NZ not because we are a nerve centre of white supremacy and hate, but because we were the exact opposite of that and our collective sadness and anguish at such hatred shows we are more than this event and that while it must shape us to do better and be better, we can not allow it to define us.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/19/on-the-trial-on-the-failure-of-our-intelligence-agencies-on-the-blame-game/feed/30How amazing has Jacinda been under this pressure? This is what political leadership looks likehttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/17/how-amazing-has-jacinda-been-under-this-pressure-this-is-what-political-leadership-looks-like/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/17/how-amazing-has-jacinda-been-under-this-pressure-this-is-what-political-leadership-looks-like/#commentsSat, 16 Mar 2019 19:36:12 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=112198

‘I can tell you one thing right now. Our gun laws will change’, right from the start Jacinda has shows what real leadership looks like.

From the moment this tragedy started, to right now, she has calmed a frightened and angry nation in a way few others could and she has shown an empathy that has led.

She has shown a grace and compassion that has helped us all weep. This is what true political leadership looks like.

She’s has truly earned the title, ‘Right Honourable’ in the last 2 days hasn’t she?

In a lot of the angry debate swirling right now, please let us remember that this diseased human chose Christchurch BECAUSE NZ is a peaceful progressive multi-cultural society, this violence IS NOT a reflection of us, we were targeted because we are good.

That’s not to say there isn’t much Islamaphobia we need to stamp out, that blogs like Whaleoil with their constant Muslim Hate, David Moffett and the New Conservatives language of violence and a rise of the far right aren’t concerns, but we weren’t targeted because this is us, quite the opposite and we need to remember that as we move forward because while this atrocity must change us, it will not define us.

This diseased human being wrote the names of other mass murder Muslim killers on his death equipment and ranted about the UN migrant pact that the National Party were enflaming last month.

Remember last week when we were all being frightened about the ‘Jihadi Kiwi’ and the supposed threat from Islamist extremists?

Doesn’t the fear look shallow and crass in the sharp dawn of today.

Today is not the day to tell me our guns laws are already quite robust because they fucking obviously weren’t. Almost 100 dead and wounded can attest to that.

I don’t care what anyone says or how supposedly legal this purchase of a gun is – as far as I’m concerned NO ONE other than police or military requires a gun that can kill this quickly. I support rifles for hunters & farmers. But no civilian needs a machine gun.

Ban them all now.‬

Personally I love the semantics gun nuts use when this debate does come up. ‘Don’t call that a machine gun, it’s technically a semi-automatic!’ they cry, as if that somehow makes the murder & violence more palatable, well at least they weren’t killed by a machine gun, it was a ‘semi-automatic’.

The real reason gun nuts make these arguments is because the public recoil from the word ‘machine gun’, where as ‘semi-automatic rifle’ sounds far less lethal.

If it walks, talks & butchers like a machine gun, it’s a fucking machine gun.

The other huge question about this tragedy is that we still have had no clear explanation how a white supremacist managed to plan and execute a massacre and not appear on ANY Intelligence agency radar.

‪If only we could spy on white supremacists with the ease we spied on Nicky Hager ‬and it’s not good enough to say, ‘he wasn’t on a watch list’ when all the watch lists are focused on Māori, Environmentalists, Greenpeace, the Greens, Earthquake victims and the MANA Party!

When you consider the vast amount of illegal surveillance the intelligence agencies used to spy on the so called Urewera terrorists, how a white supremacist managed to arm up and commit this atrocity demands answers now.

I woke up late and the first fragments of consciousness convinced me yesterday had been a nightmare until the fog of waking lifted.

49 dead. 48 injured.

Now I just feel sick.

Remember last week when we were all being frightened about the ‘Jihadi Kiwi’ and the supposed threat from Islamist extremists?

Doesn’t the fear look shallow and crass in the sharp dawn of today.

Jacinda is on.

She is calming. But this is just so sad. So terribly sad.

She comes out with a very clear message. “Our gun laws WILL change”. This is what real leadership looks like!

3 have been arrested. I prayed this was a ‘lone wolf’, that doesn’t make it any less painful, but it is better than a tumour of corrupt individuals.

The anger at how our intelligence agencies seem to have utterly missed this is clear in the journalists questions.

Considering how the GCSB and SIS have had massive budget increases demands questions how this was missed.

Recent revelations that state agencies have wasted time spying on Māori, Environmentalists, Earthquake victims, Greenpeace, MANA Party and the Greens demands questions of how this was missed.

When you consider the vast amount of illegal surveillance the intelligence agencies used to spy on the so called Urewera terrorists, how a white supremacist managed to arm up and commit this atrocity demands answers now

It’s not good enough to say, ‘he wasn’t on a watch list’ when all the watch lists are focused on Māori, Environmentalists, Greenpeace, the Greens, Earthquake victims and the MANA Party!

I took my daughter to a climate protest yesterday and she felt empowered and excited at the hope and promise of that activism. Today I’ll take her to the exact same place for the planned vigil and we will stand quietly with her little hand in my limp fist in vigil to this obscenity.

Life rarely encapsulates the tragedy of fate’s yin and yang so starkly.

As we rock on our heels at the magnitude of evil that has been spat upon our Muslim whanau, we will kaleidoscope a spectrum from shock to grief to rage

But the best of us is better than this spite and we must not allow this stain to hollow our wholes.

As we lay down with numb souls, rest dear friends. Tomorrow’s grim grey will continue to test us as we struggle for our nations oxygen.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has criticised National for attacking a United Nations pact on migration, which he says the party initiated in 2016.

This week National leader Simon Bridges said if his party was in government, it would pull out of the UN’s Global Compact on Migration because of what he saw as its potential to restrict New Zealand’s ability to set its own migration and foreign policy.

He called on the Government to outline its position on the intergovernmental negotiated agreement, which is set to be signed in Morocco next week.

National’s Foreign Affairs Spokesman Todd McClay asked Peters if he was aware the agreement made no distinction between legal and illegal migration and called for restrictions on freedom of speech and the media.

Peters said he had studied the allegations, which had been made by some countries around the world and some people in a worldwide campaign, very carefully.

“Both those allegations are demonstrably false,” he told the House.

…and the Green Party co-leader is this week attacked by someone screaming about the UN…

…Political Leaders are responsible for the passions they inject into debate through their rhetoric. National knew the complaints they raised about the UN were spiteful and conspiracy laced, and they did it anyway.

Watching these same Political Leaders rush to decry the violence their rhetoric might have enflamed is charmless.

Climate change is an existential challenge to our species that will impact the lives of Boomers, Get Xers, Gen Y AND Millennials in their lifetimes.

If catastrophic climate change is a lived experience for us, that means your future is shaped and defined by it.

We have failed you as adults, we have allowed the vested interests to reign, we’ve allowed the 100 corporate giants who create 70% of the emissions to deceive us with quack science so the magnitude of what we face is diminished by the numbing pretence of skepticism as if the science isn’t settled and brutally clear.

Thank you for standing as one to scream at us, to wake us from our petty slumber. Your voice echoes and challenges down the corridors of destiny. The time is now to listen.

And if you after still on the fence about marching today, the boyfriend of the Prime Minister said it’s ok…

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/15/dear-young-people-of-new-zealand-strike-strike-and-strike-again/feed/5James Shaw assaulted in public – a sudden political chill on a Summer dayhttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/14/james-shaw-assaulted-in-public-a-sudden-political-chill-on-a-summer-day/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/14/james-shaw-assaulted-in-public-a-sudden-political-chill-on-a-summer-day/#commentsWed, 13 Mar 2019 22:29:39 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=112061

Green Party co-leader James Shaw has been admitted to hospital after an attack on his way to Parliament this morning.

Shaw was attacked by one person; he was grabbed and received a knock to his face.

The 45-year-old has given a detailed statement to police, Newshub says.

Shaw, 45, is the Climate Change and Statistics Minister and an associate minister of finance, health and transport.

The attack was thought to be near the gardens at Kelburn.

A Green Party spokesman said although the attack appeared to be unprovoked, the person – who the spokesman said was a man – knew who Shaw was.

The Greens have requested have requested compassionate leave from the House today from the Speaker.

A spokesman for the Green Party said Shaw was punched in the face and suffered a black eye in the attack.

Shaw, who was walking to work from his Kelburn home, was attacked by the man who stepped out.

Luckily, two passersby stepped in after the attack. He continued on to work and attended a meeting before going

…let’s hope this is some dreadful random violence by a disturbed person as opposed to a targeted political attack – the former is depressing, the latter terrifying.

We must not, can not, go down the road of injecting violence into our political system. We can disagree passionately, we can argue aggressively we can angrily debate one another, but no matter the disagreement or difference, we must never raise hands to one another.

We are all brothers and sisters here, we are all citizens of NZ, we must never allow the angels of our lesser natures breach our obligations of decency to one another.

Shane Jones is being publicly flogged in the media at the moment and howls for a lynching are circulating around the major establishment pundits so you know he’s really pissed someone off.

Shane Jones & NZ First must be destroyed by the establishment because what the Provincial Growth Fund represents terrifies the Public Sector and the neoliberal hawks.

It stops Matthew Hooton and Fran O’Sullivan from dreaming in colour.

The reason why the Left should care about Jones, NZ First and their Provincial Growth Fund is because this is the only obvious left wing economic policy this entire Government has. The idea of circumventing the neoliberal public service and dropping large amounts of money directly into projects rather than being leeched into mediocrity by the bureaucratic Wellington Goon squad is revolutionary in a free market dominated neoliberal economic landscape.

Every neoliberal hawk and Feudal Public Service Lord want to trip Jones up and see the Provincial Growth Fund fail because NZ First’s desire to force actual change with public money threatens all their vested interests.

Of course there needs to be checks and balances to this fund and Jones can be as loose as goose at the best of times, but when you consider the economic self mutilation of National when needlessly selling state assets never attracted the vehement spite Jones has, you know far more primal urges are driving the punditry’s attack against him and the fund.

We want Government’s raising and spending funding directly until the Public Service can prove they are using the money for the welfare of the people.

National MPs supported Brady, a professor at Canterbury University, giving her view on the issue which is a focus of the committee’s inquiry into the 2017 general election and 2016 local elections.

The eight-strong committee is evenly split between National and Labour MPs and today’s vote against means Brady cannot appear.

…Brady has claimed Raymond Huo is the Chinese plant inside the Labour Party…

“Raymond Huo霍建强 works very publicly with China’s united front organizations in New Zealand and promotes their policies in English and Chinese. Huo was a Member of Parliament from 2008 to 2014, then returned to Parliament again in 2017 when a list position became vacant. In 2009, at a meeting organized by the Peaceful Reunification of China Association of New Zealand to celebrate Tibetan Serf Liberation Day, Huo said that as a “person from China” (中国人) he would promote China’s Tibet policies to the New Zealand Parliament.

It was Huo who made the decision to translate Labour’s 2017 election campaign slogan “Let’s do it” into a quote from Xi Jinping (撸起袖子加油干, which literally means “roll up your sleeves and work hard”). Huo told journalists at the Labour campaign launch that the Chinese translation “auspiciously equates to a New Year’s message from President Xi Jinping encouraging China to ‘roll its sleeves up’.” …… Xi’s catchphrase has been widely satirized in Chinese social media. Nonetheless, the phrase is now the politically correct slogan for promoting OBOR, both in China and abroad. ……. In 2014, when asked about the issue of Chinese political influence in New Zealand, Huo told RNZ National, “Generally the Chinese community is excited about the prospect of China having more influence in New Zealand” and added, “many Chinese community members told him a powerful China meant a backer, either psychologically or in the real sense.””– source, ‘Magic Weapons’ – aka the Brady Report , September 2017.

The closing date for submissions was over five months ago on 23 September 2018 and the date was widely publicised by committee staff in the usual way, he said in a statement.

The Committee had asked the Security Intelligence Service, the Government Communications and Security Bureau and the National Assessments Bureau to appear.

“As committee chair, I am satisfied that the correct procedure has been followed and that the agencies will keep the committee well informed about any issues of foreign interference that may arise,” Huo said in a statement.

…this claim of it being only a procedural issue is bullshit because Andrew Little, the Minister of Justice, wrote to Huo AFTER submissions closed and asked for the issue of foreign influence to be addressed, and seeing as Brady is the expert in that field, blaming procedure is a pretence.

How can Raymond Huo be able to wield this amount of self censorship?

Do our Chinese Overlords really have the power to simply stop evidence being heard in a New Zealand select committee? It would appear they do.

There has been a lot of hysteria about the Capital Gains Tax from pundits, the media and of course National. The same hysteria that was whipped up about our desire to strengthen worker rights, the same hysteria that claimed the Government would fall if Winston became acting Leader and the same hysteria that suggested Jacinda couldn’t be a mother and the Prime Minister.

It’s a malicious fear, not based on genuine concerns, but on bias and falsehood.

Why do we need this Capital Gains Tax? To be a fairer and more equal New Zealand, that’s why.

Earlier in life I was a Freezing workers president. It’s hard physical work in the freezing works, and while I have gone on to hold many jobs and roles in my life, the injustice that a worker paid tax on every dollar they earned while some business people and property speculators did not, angered me then as it does now.

This CGT is an attempt to share the tax burden across the entire spectrum of the economy so that some relief can be provided for working people.

Why should the men and women of the freezing works, of the manufacturing jobs, retail, clerical, the nurses, Drs, Teachers, Police, labourers, everyone who pays PAYE, why should they shoulder the full weight of taxation while owners and speculators don’t pay a cent?

This is about inequality and how to counter that inequality. Why should working people pay tax, but those who can afford accountants avoid it?

My time as an Alliance MP was all about attempting to reshape the taxation landscape so that working people weren’t the ones propping up the system while others exploited the loopholes. Now as a Labour MP, I support a CGT that is about closing those loopholes and providing fairness and balance across our tax system.

A CGT is only paid when you realise the value once you sell the house (excluding the family home) or business. This CGT in practice will impact few people and take nothing from anyone because it will only be paid once the property or business is sold.

New Zealand is an egalitarian country, demanding workers’ pay every cent in tax while others mange to exploit taxation loopholes is not the Kiwi way, despite what Simon Bridges says.

We have a report that we will look into and consider in good faith and communicate our vision to the voters who will have the opportunity to vote on it at the next election.

Allowing National and their mates in the media to ignore the inequality of our taxation system has been going on for far too many years and now is the time to be courageous and for a Government to finally address this question.

I think of those fellow workers who stood alongside me in the freezing works decades ago and hope that their sweat and tears won’t go to waste by ensuring everyone pays their fair share, not just them.

…YES! YES! YES!

This is what Labour need to do, actually argue their values and stand up for them rather than looking like frightened children.

There are no excuses for the Government to lose control of the narrative over an event they arranged and knew the date of being launched. There are two lessons from this CGT debacle

It doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with what I write, but everyone can acknowledge that the Police can’t simply breach your privacy or civil rights without proper judicial oversight.

It has taken years to hold the Police to account, I’m not giving up yet.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/07/breaking-the-human-rights-review-tribunal-finally-will-hear-my-case-against-the-nz-police/feed/25Burning Michael Jackson’s music – this is who we are nowhttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/07/burning-michael-jacksons-music-this-is-who-we-are-now/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/07/burning-michael-jacksons-music-this-is-who-we-are-now/#commentsWed, 06 Mar 2019 20:50:02 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=111859

MediaWorks Group Content Director Leon Wratt told Magic Talk’s Peter Williams this will primarily affect The Breeze and More FM, but also extends to the network’s wider brands.

NZME & NZ Radio are run by micro aggression policing millennial culture groupthink so thought crime censorship of Michael Jackson should surprise no one.

In the post #MeToo cultural landscape where accusation is the new evidential threshold & outrage olympics the virtue signalling of choice, book burning presentism is the new cultural revolution.

Woke social media lynch mobs are the custodians of the neo-Salem witch trials.

This is who we is now, this is what we are

How enlightened.

]]>https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/07/burning-michael-jacksons-music-this-is-who-we-are-now/feed/19If you are angry about the ‘Kiwi Jihadi’ being able to return to NZ, wait until you hear what Australia is doing by forcibly repatriating convicted criminalshttps://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/05/if-you-are-angry-about-the-kiwi-jihadi-being-able-to-return-to-nz-wait-until-you-hear-what-australia-is-doing-by-forcibly-repatriating-convicted-criminals/
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/05/if-you-are-angry-about-the-kiwi-jihadi-being-able-to-return-to-nz-wait-until-you-hear-what-australia-is-doing-by-forcibly-repatriating-convicted-criminals/#commentsMon, 04 Mar 2019 19:44:36 +0000https://thedailyblog.co.nz/?p=111759

The irony of a country founded by criminals reacting parochially and forcibly renditioning citizens of other countries despite those individuals living most of their life in Australia would be hilarious if it weren’t so damaging.

Between 2015-2019, 1664 Australians have been deported back to NZ and of those 44% have re-offended.

Failed terrorist Mark Taylor is a tiny problem in a much larger issue.

If you have outrage for the former & not the latter perhaps your Islamaphobia is showing?

If the biggest threat to us is a ‘terrorist’ who forgot to turn off his geotagging function, we aren’t doing too badly for the beginning of the week.

Great strategy, refuse to compromise on fringe ideology that makes the People’s Front of Judea look popular…

…and then just change the voting system to only benefit them.

I expect this kind of ruthless corruption of the electoral system from National or ACT (and MANA on a good day when undermining neoliberalism), but from the Greens it’s inspirational stuff that sings to the anarchistic hate spider of nihilism that slowly envelops my once optimistic heart.

Note that it’s not 1%, 2% or 3% which would be an honest solution to the issue of MMP not allowing enough voices and different ideas getting democratic traction, oh no, it’s 4%, the threshold that would most benefit the Greens while killing off any other proto-political movement.

What is most galling is the Greens seem to want to pass this in time for the 2020 election. Now put aside the naked self interest on display here, but such a decision, even if it happened, should require a 75% supermajority of Parliament, not just a basic 51%.

Why should the threshold be set at 4%? I don’t give two shits what the Royal Commission had to say in 1986 and I give even less weight to the Electoral Commission’s worthless nothings mouthed in 2012, if the argument is about giving proto political movements more chance of representation and a more democratic environment, why not 3% or 2%?

Why is it the threshold that will only serve the Greens & NZ First and why does it need to be rammed through by 2020?

Now, for the record, I completely agree Prisoners should be able to vote and foreign donations stopped.

I also believe the threshold should be lowered to 3% so that new political movements can gain representation, and I think the threshold changes need to be a supermajority or by referendum.

Those changes however are ones that would benefit the entire democratic eco-system, not just the Greens and NZ First.

Watch the Greens argue for a change that nakedly benefits them while trampling every other value is proof positive our Millennial Greens have come of age and are now as politically venal as everyone else.

My blackened heart swells with pride.

This is pretty ugly, and if it were the Right pulling these sorts of tactics we would be eviscerating them.

The decision was made by the district commander, Superintendent John Price, today after two related incidents – in the suburbs of Wainoni on Saturday and Richmond on Tuesday night – in which officers were shot at.

One person has been taken into custody after the Christchurch shooting but police were still seeking one other person in relation to Wainoni incident.

All frontline police have firearms in their vehicles, but the Cantebury officers will also be carrying them in a holster.

In a statement, Mr Price said the decsion to arm all officers was not one to be taken lightly.

He said he believed it was necessary in this instance to ensure the safety of police staff and members of the public.

Police Minister Stuart Nash is backing the decision but said it did not mean that routine arming of police was on the horizon.

Mr Nash said he was told about the decision this afternoon.

He said it was a rare event and a temporary measure.

…I don’t trust our poorly trained cops as it is, arming them to the teeth is unacceptable.

We have a policing culture of containment, allowing Police with minimum gun training to carry guns is a recipe for disaster.

Why and how is this spike in armed offending occurring? That answer is the solution, not a gun toting nervous police force.

When more NZ cops get guns, more Māori get shot. That is the simple cruelty of that equation.

It defies belief that a bloody District Police Commander can make a call like this.

This is not a Police State, we don’t amputate civil rights because it makes their job a tad safer and easier. Somebody needs to remind Stuart Nash of that.